Perhaps Malta can be defined in these terms: a unique geographical position midway between two distinct continents and constituting part of the frontier of one of them, a long colonial experience, a strong and uninterrupted religious tradition as old as its early free-standing stone buildings, a rich and ancient language of an international character.
A few thousand people have persistently built themselves into a nation. Survival is the name of the complex game- Oliver Friggieri
Smallness and entirety: that is the paradox, a reality worthy of being researched scientifically as much as narrated through my novel, actually a trilogy (Hekk Tħabbat il-Qalb Maltija, Klabb Kotba Maltin, 2011).
Historical research has successfully identified what makes such a minute stretch of land a nation, and eventually an autonomous state. An exception to the rule, to the point of claiming to be a full member of a united Europe.
Its smallness is already an indication of something peculiar that has managed to stand the test of time, to outwit the dictates of history and to finally arrive at the point defining a nation as fully accomplished.
A few thousand people have persistently built themselves up into a nation. Survival is the ultimate name of the complex game, and continuity is the sort of process that made them reach their destination.
A history of Malta may be substantially distinct from a history of the Maltese. Where were they, all along, so productive – through their highly creative spoken word and finely constructed stone – and yet so distinctly absent, unacknowledged?
Religion (pre-Christian and Christian) and language (pre-Maltese and Maltese) have moulded their condition, giving shape to their frame of mind (grammar amply testifies this). Both are intimately intertwined in a manner rarely found in the chronicles of much bigger countries which did not have to face the most elementary among problems: survival.
The challenge of overcoming extinction went hand in hand with striving to construct nationhood, to keep alive that degree of ethnic coherence which is necessary for a community to be defined as something compact. Being Maltese, therefore, is equally a source of authentic pride and a question of self-investigation.
That question can be answered scientifically and illustrated literarily. Both efforts can be combined to form one unique process of discovery. Academic research provides conclusions which literary perception can then reconstruct into a system.
One can best explore the close quarters of the Maltese soul (Mediterranean, southern European, insular, small, peripheral) through a novel. Such remote and shaded territories are normally unsung, unacknowledged, perhaps disowned, only to be considered as mere aspects of outdated, irrelevant folk life.
On the contrary, there is much to prove that such residues of the past betray traits of archetypal modes of perception and behaviour which survive in the Maltese of today. If the terms ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ are still relevant outside economics, it can be said that both overlap and imply each other.
The central point is the reality of someone living on an island. The inhabitant is hard-working, determined, unrecognised, and has two constant points of reference: his God and his stretch of land.
Both have never failed him/her. The land is tiny, and the sea is infinite; both contradict the inhabitant’s sense of space and preciseness.
An island is thus seen as an open secret, an exception to the rule of the much broader spaces, a peculiar reality worth exploring which is quite different, perhaps more intriguing and inspiring, from the one a visitor may get on the mainland, the so-called terra firma.
Here a whole continent has its boundary. The periphery begets a special feeling. That is what can be sought within oneself and consequently through the depiction of characters and situations in a novel.
It-Tfal Jiġu bil-Vapuri, La Jibbnazza Niġi Lura and Dik id-Dgħajsa f’Nofs il-Port, forming a trilogy, Hekk Tħabbat il-Qalb Maltija, reconstruct the early decades of the 20th century and later years.
Everything is meant to depict a sort of Malta which is no more, but which will presumably reside in the memory of various generations, enticing the younger ones to imagine and to dream of a future resembling the past. Perhaps globalisation is heading towards something of this sort.
So the island of these novels may actually be somewhere within us, timeless. Is it possible that tourists choose to visit such a remote rock mainly to discover a feeling islanders inevitably live all time?
The situation in Malta during the British period may be a fitting setting to evoke such a perception. Even economically, Malta’s present largely depends on the preservation of its past. That is tourism.
Archaelogical evidence pertaining to Malta goes back 7,000 years. Here are the oldest free-standing stone buildings in the world. Its megalithic temples are a marvel, the earliest ‘churches’ which have actually established the major feature of Maltese identity: the unity between religious faith and national culture, predating our ancient Christianity itself.
Both belief in the Lord and love for the land have uninterruptedly flourished together in partial isolation, indeed a splendid one which has not deprived any of what is essential and common to any other anywhere else.
It then had to be St Paul, shipwrecked and welcomed, to give a different and much more distinctive shape to that pre-existing conviction that heaven and earth must meet somewhere in the human soul.
The inner aspect of the island resembles an unlocked mystery, whereas the outer one seems to exemplify just another segment of the complexity of the south.
Regionality provides a complete definition of a country. Characters in Hekk Tħabbat il-Qalb Maltija are all the product of a long, uninterrupted tradition, within which they recognise themselves.
An unmarried mother, a rigidly traditionalist father, an utterly submissive mother, a saintly priest whose holiness knows no bounds, and a distant, though vigilant, crowd: perhaps these are the constituent elements of a conventional southern European village, as typified in a local one.
In such a corner, ‘it-tarf tad-dinja’, all the predicaments of life are equally present: peace and disorder, love and hatred, life and death. Indeed, the village includes both the cradle and the cemetery, and is therefore self-sufficient.
Tradition and modernity go hand in hand. Without its past, well preserved, venerated, Malta will not enjoy any future- Oliver Friggieri
Either directly or in disguise, from feasts to cuisine, that connection is always there. It has caused much joy to the Maltese, and it has sometimes heightened their bitter conflicts (Strickland, Mintoff, the Church-State relationship, post-modernism), but to date, never to disagreeable degrees.
Maltese conflicts somehow reach a point and then come to a halt so as to calm down and lead back to normality. The Church-State encounters have normally illustrated this tendency.
Life on an island must in any case look like a family event, an unpredictable story in itself which must then have a happy ending. Celebrations of any sort are frequent, church village festas are a continuous occurrence, whereas politics is indeed an entertainingly controversial commitment to most inhabitants.
Islanders are a special breed. They tend to be inward-looking and yet always in search of the outer world. Tourism, Malta’s major industry, largely depends on the hospitality of the average people.
The Maltese instinctively greet foreign visitors and would go out of their way to make them feel at home during their stay. That verdict is unanimous and the Maltese trace their virtue back to Biblical times (Acts of the Apostles, 28:1). In St Luke’s account the keyword is perhaps ‘courtesy’, (ħlewwa), itself the keyword in Dun Karm’s Innu Malti.
In actual fact, this may be due to what seems to make the Maltese consistent in their perception of themselves and the universe at large. The entrenched feeling of duality, namely a world view inevitably divisible into two is essential to the whole interpretation: I and the other, ‘ta’ Malta’ and ‘ta’ barra’, namely here and whatever else remains. It may be pertinent to note that in Maltese the dual frequently expresses plurality in all its infiniteness.
I have repeatedly found myself facing this interpretation in the process of writing.
A character in a novel, a general social background, an argument, all characters when put together as a group, the choice of the literary word as opposed to the more frequently used one: this sort of duality has largely determined my way of thinking and constructing written works.
The major political parties have for many decades shared power and support between themselves. Most Maltese belong from their early years to their party, since ‘belonging’ is equivalent to ‘being’ (‘min int’ implies ‘ta’ min int’). One is born within a group, and different choices may only be made within that decisive perspective.
An islander cannot easily afford to be capriciously exposed to the whims of the other. And ‘the other’ is the sea, that huge expanse larger than one’s own, different and challenging. It recalls the past, when sieges have occurred, and it ushers the future, when the wide world comes closer with its dictates.
Globalisation is indeed the new form of centralisation, typical in different ways of any era, now determined by a non-political force: technology. In novels formally evoking the past (namely such periods as pre-war, post-war, post-independence), the present is indirectly implied, and comparisons and contrasts are immediately drawn.
Tourism has turned self-recognition into an economic necessity. As this industry assumes greater importance, it becomes more obvious that an island can only survive through going on being itself: its future somehow resides in its past.
In an island, more than anywhere else, both tradition and modernity tend to go on hand in hand, embodying continuity. Without its past, well preserved, venerated, Malta will not enjoy any future at all. The Maltese character must embody this compromise between what appear to be extremes.
The Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Arabs, the British, have all contributed towards the formation of modern man. The Knights of Malta have left an indelible mark in most sectors of culture, mainly in architecture. Napoleon, the real predecessor of Dom Mintoff, took Malta within days, but he said the right thing, or partly so, in the wrong way, and the uprising of the Maltese soon led to the British period. Perhaps a novel is the best medium for putting all this into meaningful shape.
The attainment of independence and the self-proclamation of Malta as a republic are the results of a whole process. So, finally, the small community was in a position to decide for itself. It had been a long and weary way, during which culture was enriched, and morale wandered through varying degrees.